Poor Lindsay Lohan has been having a rough time lately. First, there was the 7,000-word profile in New York Times magazine about what a pain in the ass it was to work with her on The Canyons. Then The Canyons got rejected from Sundance. And now, it’s been rejected by South by Southwest, with a source saying the film has “an ugliness and a deadness to it.” And that’s just when they were looking into Lindsay’s eyes! You’re welcome, Jay Leno, now you don’t have to write that joke tonight.
Sources tell THR that SXSW has joined Sundance in rejecting the erotic thriller. A festival insider tells THR that the Bret Easton Ellis-penned, Paul Schrader-directed Canyons — which features tons of nudity, including au naturel shots of Lohan — suffers from significant “quality issues.”
Says a festival insider, “It’s got an ugliness and a deadness to it.” Canyons producer Braxton Pope says the filmmakers are still awaiting official word from the festival. [hollywoodreporter]
Moar like the CanYAWNS, am I right? If I saw this Lo-han-ging piece of Pope, I’d drive Easton until my car James Deened into a tree. /fakeGeneShalit
I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve seen some shithouse films at film festivals (*cough* Buried *cough, cough*), and to me this smacks of film festivals desperately needing to assert that they’re somehow “above” this kind of celebrity. See also: Robert Redford slamming Paris Hilton for showing up to Sundance. So yeah, it’s fun to make fun of Lindsay Lohan being a train wreck, but festival organizers don’t get a pass on being smug hypocrites either. They’ll say it’s about the quality of the film, but more likely she just doesn’t have the right kind of celebrity for them. They want stuff like Adrien Grenier doing a documentary about paparazzi, or Turtle’s lyrical, semi-autobiographical think-piece about the nature of celebrity (doesn’t exist yet, thankfully). The movie itself will be just as insufferable as The Canyons, but the star will show up and wear a nice scarf and pretend it’s all about the art while collecting the same gift bags, and everyone’s happy. Why, we can’t have Lindsay Lohan coming here turning our nice fart-sniffing festival into some playground for dilettantes! Think of the scandal!
By the way, how were the reviews for the last Bret Easton Ellis-scripted film presumably of sufficient quality to be admitted to Sundance, hmm?
“A lurid, soapy, moralistic melodrama so mucky you’ll need a shower.” -Film4
“the response to “The Informers” when it premiered at Sundance was so overwhelmingly negative — like laugh-out-loud, slow-down-to-look-at-the-train-wreck negative — that I’m honestly surprised the distributor had the guts to proceed with the theatrical release. ” -Eric D. Snider
“There is a weird, almost comic absence of insight and perspective here. But it is a joke without humour and without a punchline.” -Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
‘The Informers’: You’ve seen this before, and you still won’t care. – St. Paul Pioneer Press
“…completely bereft of any sort of POINT, The Informers is an ugly, blank slate of a film.” -Cinematical
“The pace is unbearably tedious, and most of the main roles are so thoroughly unlikable that no matter how sensationalized the action is on screen, it all just feels boring.” -USA Today
“It’s possible this role killed Brad Renfro.” -Honolulu Advertiser
“It’s possible this role killed Brad Renfro” is one of my favorite pull quotes of all time. But despite The Informers’ 13 percent recommended rating, that one didn’t have Lindsay Lohan or her low-art baggage. Come on, guys, at least she’s trying. SHE’S GETTING NAKED IN A MICRO-BUDGET INDIE! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, YOU MONSTERS!